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I started the year with a group of Year 6 children who were frightened of maths and so set myself the task of making maths fun!

Their Year 5 teacher had introduced Maths Monster to the children and they had really responded, solving problems for him and helping him get into Monster University by helping him learn maths. They obviously loved him because when he came back for a visit, one maths lesson, they were so excited to solve complex investigations and buy into the concept of this poor creature that couldn’t do maths.

From this, I decided to adopt a Maths Monster of my own (because they’re real you know!) and along came Mark, Maths Monster’s more confident, but clumsier, younger brother. Mark often rushes through his workings and doesn’t get things right and so the children have to sort out the mistakes he makes.

The children also had the idea that one of them would take him home at the weekend and do maths with him, taking photos and recording their maths in Mark’s diary.

This is adding an extra layer of maths for the children and on Friday they are so eager to see who is taking him home. The maths they are doing is complex and in a real life context, such as recording how many minutes Mark was asleep, tracking the average speed on a bike ride and measuring and converting ingredients when cooking for Eid celebrations.

I would recommend this, it’s great and the children initiate most of the learning so are totally invested.